


beauty queen

by dreamtowns



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Noctis Lives, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Feels, Canon Disabled Character, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-24 00:41:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20017429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamtowns/pseuds/dreamtowns
Summary: His safest place was a bedroom; photographs and sticky-note reminders littered the wall. Color faded from the rug from too many wash cycles. Film rolls were found in random places—on bookshelves, inside a sock, perched like a crown atop a stuffed plush toys’ head. Oversized sweaters crumbled on the floor, the echo ofI’ll pick it up, I’ll pick it upringing in his ears.Noctis stepped inside the bedroom in what felt like years and breathed as the sensation ofhomesunk deep inside his bones.





	beauty queen

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Final Fantasy XV. All rights reserved to its developers: Square Enix. All that is mine is the plot of this story in particular and any original characters introduced. No copyright infringement intended. No money is being made from this work. This is purely for entertainment purposes.
> 
> enjoy :')
> 
> i wrote this in an hour, so im sorry for any errors

Noctis managed to leave the train station undeterred and undetected. There were probably a few of the more discreet Kingsglaive members trailing after him, now that he thought about it, but it was better on his nerves to believe that he was alone as he marched toward a neighborhood he could retrace in his sleep.

He approached the empty house with his breath caught in his throat—no one had really gone inside it in almost a decade, really—and leaned down to scoop the spare key from the flowerpot nestled by the welcome mat. The flowers inside—a blossom from the Cleigne region—had been dead for months. No one was around to care for it.

The key slipped inside the slot with little fuss. Door handled croaked in protest as he opened the door and crossed the threshold. The AC whirred in the background; a soft white noise that made him hum. Noctis shut the door behind him with a click and shrugged off his jacket.

Floorboards rustled beneath his shoes as he walked. Dust made life inside this house in the absence of its’ owners. Ignis would have a heart attack if he’d see the state it was in.

He trailed without a clear goal. The kitchen tiles, a different paint than the rest of the house, were chipped and peeled from decay. Used dishes were still stacked in the sink, leftovers from a rushed morning out of the house.

Noctis breathed, coughed for a good moment or two, and took his time up the staircase. Wood grumbled and hissed under his weight, but he never feared a fall. His footsteps, though soft and steady, echoed a haunting tune as he approached the second door to the right. He could find a path to this room with his eyes closed.

A flowerpot had been upended; dirt intermixed with shattered glass. The plant had long since wilted and passed. Some pictures—old photos from childhood, a graduation picture of bright smiles and relief—were on the floor. Broken and cracked, they spoke of another dynasty; a different life.

Noctis opened the door.

His safest place was a bedroom; photographs and sticky-note reminders littered the wall. Color faded from the rug from too many wash cycles. Film rolls were found in random places—on bookshelves, inside a sock, perched like a crown atop a stuffed plush toys’ head. Oversized sweaters crumbled on the floor, the echo of _I’ll pick it up, I’ll pick it up_ ringing in his ears.

Noctis stepped inside the bedroom in what felt like years and breathed as the sensation of _home_ sunk deep inside his bones. It was as if he had never left. Tears prickled the edges of his eyes as he surveyed the room, the damage—the window had been broken, and glass littered the floor precariously; a lamp had been overturned. A few photos were on the phone. What was once a stack of books had fallen in a heap of misery.

Noctis took a seat on the edge of the bed. He probably shouldn’t—who knew what bacteria and other such germs made themselves at home on the unwashed fabrics? —but he didn’t care at that moment. Ignis would lecture him regardless of his sitting choices.

He sat there for a while and listened to the world. A neighbor mowed their lawn. Some children shrieked and played with one another. A dog barked at a passing car, and a child laughingly shrieked its’ name. He overheard a few women discussing the latest educational reforms over their laundry lines. A mailman delivered a package next door.

Noctis breathed. Coughed.

He stood and walked toward the desk; unused and dusty. He took care around the wood—it looked a bit like termites had used it as a chew toy—and trained his gaze on the various photos pinned and taped on the wall.

An imprint of a ghost laughed behind him. _Oh, Gods, remember that photo? It was AWFUL—I snorted milkshake out of my nose and tasted it for days._

His lips twitched. He reached for another.

 _I’m pretty sure another perspective of this was in some magazine—the press went insane over you trying that new Galahdian place on 5 th, remember? _The echo pressed against him; warm and familiar like one of the sweaters on the floor. _Business boomed for them. I wonder how they’re doing._

Memories and moments stuck in time floated around Noctis. The photographs looked untouched by time, except for a few here and there. History bled from their smiles and funny faces; from the Kenny Crow mascot they pranked in senior year to the water balloon fight a few Glaives and Guards participated in. Nyx Ulric’s braids were captured as they flew around his face, and he looked so bright and vivid Noctis swore he heard his laugh.

A Chocobo chick, white with blue spots, in slumber. A Chocobo ranch long gone, crumbled beneath metal and fire. No survivors, he remembered. _She was so cute and little, Noct; holy shit, you should’ve seen her—she would’ve loved you._

Noctis exhaled. It trembled just like his hands. He reached for one photo, and his leg almost spasmed beneath him. He should sit down now. At some point.

Captured in a café no longer there, the echo paid more attention to the book on their lap than Noctis’ grip on the camera. Tongue stuck out, bright green highlighter in a fingerless gloved hand. Activity from the rest of the café was muted and blurred. Focus most placed on the echo’s quiet beauty in a moment he hadn’t expected to be witnessed.

A smudge of pink highlighter edged across the echo’s chin. Noctis remembered pressing a quiet kiss against it, acting like it had personally offended him. He had laughed and said, _I should ban highlighters, huh? Nothing’s allowed to hurt you._

The echo had snickered. _I don’t think your royal advisors would like that._

Midterm season had sparked the photo; nestled in a place that harried and stressed college students frequented. They claimed a circular table near a window, and the early morning sun glowed around the echo like an angelic halo. Noctis claimed he looked like a child of Eos over crumbling blueberry muffins that were half-burnt.

 _Are you taking photos of me?_ The whine came only a few precious seconds after the photo had been taken. _OMG, Noct, I look so GROSS._

 _You don’t,_ Noctis had said and grown delighted at the heated blush when he added, soft and warm, fiddling with the straw of his drink. _You’ve never looked more gorgeous than now._

The tears he once swallowed fell. Its’ freedom tasted bitter, yet sweet. It reminded him of the Altissian chocolates the ghost tried to get him to taste once. They both cackled for what felt like hours when Noctis spat it out in a comical manner. The chocolate stain was somewhere around here.

With more gentleness and care than he thought possible, Noctis removed the photo from its’ place. Crinkled lines appeared in his grasp. His heart stuttered in place. One beat, two beats. He breathed. Coughed, again.

“Noct.”

He turned to see Ignis in the doorway, unsurprised but grateful at his presence. “Guess it’s . . . time to go, now, huh?”

Ignis dipped his head in a nod, but it wasn’t uncaring. If anything, Ignis had never looked softer at that moment. “I believe it is time, your Majesty, to say your goodbyes.”

Noctis swallowed his tongue. “I . . . yeah.”

It would always be a room drenched in the warmth of his past, of his childhood. The boy he had been in this bedroom, during sleepovers and weekend-long game marathons, was buried for half his life. Quietly mourned during the days, the weeks, that led to the farce of a treaty and his failed engagement to Luna.

He breathed. Coughed.

The photo crinkled.

“Come, Noct.” Ignis looped an arm through Noctis’. Some would comment it was so Ignis could move around, so Noctis could guide him, but they were well-aware that Ignis needed little help in this house. He knew it better than Noctis, after all. “One step at a time, sweetheart.”

His breath made his lungs concave, but he took a step forward. And another. They inched down the stairs. A moth-eaten blanket—knitted, designed in a soft orange and white—haphazardly thrown over the arm of the couch. A bowl of stale, rotten grapes abandoned on the coffee table.

_Dunno why you hate veggies so much, Noct—when we get older, my skin will be clear, and you’ll be a wrinkly old man!_

One step.

He closed his eyes. A bloodied and torn wristband on cold and clinical floors; the trail led to a dead end. An exhale and a twinge of budding pain in his knee. He moved another leg.

_Two._

Ignis guided him patiently. He knew, better than anyone, better than Noctis himself, what this house, what that room, meant to Noctis.

A decade and four days passed since he last saw Prompto Argentum; last heard his voice and the softness of his laugh. Experienced the gentle touch of fingers that trailed over the bumps in his spine. The bed in the Citadel would remain empty on the left side. He woke cold every morning; he fell asleep to distant memories of the Chocobo tune sung softly beneath the wind.

When Noctis stepped out of the house and reached the car, he turned around one last time. The photo in his hands pulsed with warmth; as if it had just been developed and spat out of a camera left untouched on his bookshelf, displayed as a sign of his grief and his love.

Ignis shut the door behind him quietly. Gladio, relaxed by the wheel, said little of Noctis’ short getaway. Neither of them breathed a word when his grief became too loud to politely ignore.

One beat, two.

The Citadel rose into view; a dream Noctis once thought destroyed beneath the blood of fallen soldiers. “Aranea has asked for your presence, Majesty,” Ignis said quietly.

Noctis exhaled as Gladio pulled into the parking spot reserved for him. “Where is she?”

“The, ah, Silver sitting rooms.”

His lips twitched. “Got it.”

He walked through the Citadel with Ignis and Gladio at his heels. His staff, his court, his men and women who pledged their life and blood to him ignored the tear marks on his face. They ignored the picture in his hands, and the way his fingers curled around it. They ignored the signs as if they weren’t there in the first place. They knew what it meant, what it symbolized. Noctis wore his royal raiments and clothing accented in white. 

Noctis refused to be quiet about who he loved—who he would always love, until his last breath—after all. He refused to taint Prompto’s memories like that; wouldn’t even consider dismissing their relationship down to a fierce friendship to the public. Noctis had lost too much for that. He had sacrificed and grieved too much.

The Silver Room, a sitting room drenched in bright colors, approached, and Noctis smiled at Aranea as he entered the room.

“I got some news for you.” Aranea Highwind, ex-mercenary to the dismantled Empire, leaned against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest.

Ignis sighed—the battle for Aranea to adhere to etiquette in Noctis’ presence had been abandoned years ago. Noctis placed the photograph on the coffee table gently (he didn’t want it to become too damaged, after all). His lips twitched at Ignis’ disgruntled expression. He waved off a server with a tray of tea and small snacks.

Noctis knew he wouldn’t be able to hold anything down right now. He exhaled.

_One beat, two._

Aranea tilted her chin toward one of the couches. “You’re gonna want to sit down for this, Princess.”

“Alright.” Noctis obeyed the command in amusement. “What’s going on?”

The smile on Aranea’s face bloomed like Duscae only a few days after the Long Night. His breath caught in his throat at the sight. Behind her, the sun rose to its’ highest peak.

**Author's Note:**

> you ever write something that makes you cry? 
> 
> also it was lightly implied, but for royalty in lucis (or anyone, really) they wear their official/casual clothes accented in white to signify they are in a grieving period. 
> 
> also implied: prompto was kidnapped from his home a few weeks before the treaty. the boys found his bloody wristband in Zegnautus :')


End file.
